Brussels, 15/12/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday, the European Commission announced that it was to grant Greece an envelope of €9.8 million to help the country deal with the influx of migrants coming in from Turkey and to shore up its capacity to manage asylum applications. “This additional sum, which has been made available in the framework of the European Refugee Fund, is earmarked for countries facing a mass influx of asylum seekers, but also to deal with the humanitarian aspect of people arriving in this part of Greece" via Turkey, said Michele Cercone, the spokesperson to the European commissioner for home affairs. This additional money will go in particular to improve housing capacity, services to deal with the immediate needs of people, to create mobile medical units and to support the asylum application procedures. It aims to cover urgent needs and has already been available since 1 December, for a duration of six months. Additionally, the Commission announced that teams of experts will soon travel to Greece to help Athens to reform its national asylum system and assess the situation on the border between Greece and Turkey. Two teams, which will be made up of experts from the member states, UNHCR and Frontex, will be deployed to support the reform of the asylum system, with the aim of providing expertise on the management of asylum applications, to register and review international protection requirements in the event of mixed migratory flows and training the Greek authorities. A third team will be deployed at the end of January to provide expertise in the field of managing the quality of the asylum decision-making process. A second edition, made up of experts of the Commission, will travel to Greece on 16 December to assess the conditions for the reception of illegal migrants and potential asylum seekers on the land border with Turkey. (B.C./transl.fl)